Ornamentum Est
July 4th
︎︎︎ July 31th, 2026
Ornamentum Est. In Latin, please. But above all, a way to circumvent a quote that might be a bit too obvious: Ornament and
Crime by Adolf Loos (1908). Ornamentum Est, which translates to: ornament exists. Indeed. Following the Contemporains and François Bauchet exhibitions—which might lead one to believe that we are interested only in radical lines and industrial processes—we wanted to organize an exhibition centered on ornament. The idea for this exhibition is not new, but it took meeting one or two of the artists featured in the exhibition for us to realize that now was the time.
So now, then. “Ornament and Crime”, written over a century ago, is a seminal text that sparked debate. We find this theme
recurring throughout the 20th century. Perhaps we should, in fact, consider much of this century’s art history as the
consequence of this questioning. But let’s stop there with the pseudo-historical justifications, even if it’s not useless
to recall them. So while for Adolf Loos ornament is a crime, for Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Mauser, and Dagobert Peche,
it is quite the opposite. And so, more than a century later, this question might resurface. For some time now—though not
very long, mind you—we’ve been seeing abstract or figurative motifs appear on furniture: lines, whether sinuous or not;
flowers, more or less stylized; and also lighting fixtures, sort of like inflorescences that are sometimes almost poisonous.
So here we are: ornament is back. We won’t pass judgment. The courts are closed,
and we don’t want to go back there.
Ornamentation is back—bravo, we’re happy—and when it disappears, we’ll be
just as happy. Ornamentation or not,
it doesn’t matter; what interests us is the creativity that stems from it, which
we value. And as we’ve said time and again, vases, fruit bowls, flowers and fruit, colors, lines, materials—all of that interests us. We can’t help being curious. Long live
futility. In Ornamentum Est, we find creators of very different worlds, but all
concerned with this question. We must also
say that none of them shy away from a challenge. While ornamentation has
recently made a comeback—or is in the
process of doing so—for them, it’s nothing new. At a time of material experiments and cold, icy worlds, they had long since decided that ornamentation would prevail.
It’s really always the same story. Take different protagonists, put them together,
and see what happens. Sometimes it works,
sometimes not at all. A story of order and arrangement, not of power and authority. A kind of harmony that makes us all dream.
A dream of the future and of possibilities. That’s sort of what Broken Family (1999)
by Jurgen Bey and Rianne Makkink is.
Broken Family is a collection of disparate household items brought together
by a uniform setting. Gathered from different places, worn, damaged, cracked—Broken Family is a blended family. Can we say these are the best ones? For some, there’s no doubt. Here, in any case, it works. But it is not so much the platinum-coated piece that interests us here as what it produces: a highlighting of the forms of each piece. A way of showcasing their
patterns, details, and damage. Assemblages are often created from the breaks.
Who is Sandra Carigliano? One might ask this question, as her name on search engines does not yield much information.
Yet it was while redesigning Sylvain Dubuisson’s apartment that she,
for entirely personal reasons, conceived an interior unlike any seen in recent times.
Building on Sylvain Dubuisson’s brilliant design for this apartment, Sandra Carigliano selected a palette of colors that
was quite unusual for the time. We loved the beiges, the dusty pinks, the terracotta, and the stoneware—and their corollary,
the famous bear-shaped sofas in bouclé fabric—but here, none of that remains. A change of scenery, one might say. A brand-new mauve sits alongside a lemon yellow, while a neon orange plays off a brilliant green. Here, color reigns supreme. No patterns, no flowers, just endless colors on the walls and objects (all carefully chosen). Stepping into Sandra Carigliano and Sylvain
Dubuisson’s apartment is like stepping into the RAL Design color palette. 2,567 colors. This is no joke. No ornamentation here, because we’re right at the heart of it. We become one with the color. We are
the ornaments. Deciding what to wear to inhabit this interior becomes a real question. Unless you live naked. Which is also an option.
Two years ago, the duo Formafantasma created “La Casa Dentro” at the initiative of the Gustini / Stagetti Gallery in Rome
and ICA Milano. In the bustling and crowded landscape of the 2024 Milan Design Week, this collection of works was truly surprising. Indeed, while from a distance the designed furniture might evoke modernist forms, a closer look revealed, sometimes
discreetly, embroidery and paintings of flowers. “La Casa Dentro,” which means “The Inner House” in English, is clearly
a mise en abîme of modernism. The ornamentation introduces an entirely different register—that of the intimate. Formafantasma explains in a conversation with curator Alberto Salvadori:
“We wanted to distance ourselves from this pillar of modern design and highlight its implicit ideologies by associating it with decorative motifs, whether painted or embroidered. This is neither a postmodern pastiche nor an ode to kitsch. It is a romantic attempt to give dignity to personal memories and to what is often culturally disparaged: the decorative,
the cute, and, by extension, the feminine.” Ornamentation suddenly takes on a specia meaning—that of a memory, one that breaks your heart.
Julia Heuer. If you live exclusively in the world of design, this name may not be familiar to you. But singer Björk, Tilda Swinton, Beth Ditto, and Maya Rudolph know her well. Julia Heuer is a textile designer who creates fabrics and clothing.
Not objects.
Yet Julia Heuer entered A1043 like the dancer Loïe Fuller stepping onto a stage. Suddenly. An almost ghostly apparition, a sort of flowery cloud drifting
across the entire length of the space. While “Ornament and Crime” is a historical reference for us, with its corollary the Vienna Secession, we also find this lovely legacy in Julia Heuer’s work—without excess or ostentation, very naturally. Or perhaps we should look to the Pre-Raphaelites, such as John Everett Millais. But Julia Heuer is not focused on the past, and her work stands perfectly on its own; to say that Julia Heuer designs clothes is perhaps reductive. Her work is just as much sculptural. Wearing a garment by Julia Heuer is as much an experience for
the wearer as it is for the observer. With Julia Heuer, attention is focused as much on the garment’s form as on its composition.
Julia Heuer invents fabrics and materials that are not merely covered in patterns but that themselves form patterns. A Julia
Heuer garment is a photograph of a pond in Monet’s garden at Giverny, run through a fruit juicer mounted on a motorcycle traveling at 200 km/h. Plus the interference of a cathode ray tube. Julia Heuer’s garments are experiences to be lived. And we are ready.
With Matt Paweski, there are no ornaments either. The ornament is. We could again draw on numerous historical references here, but they eventually become crutches. Indeed, references help us feel less alone and less lost. But a work of art is meant to lose us; otherwise, what’s the point? So let’s go. Welcome to another space, a new dimension. Looking at Matt Paweski’s work is to feel as lost as you are drawn in. Here, nothing is gratuitous, and everything corresponds to a particularly precise manufacturing process. With Matt Paweski, a tenth of a millimeter matters, and we can really feel it. The colors, the dimensions, even the material of the assembly rivets are important, and sometimes even the saw marks left visible in the thickness of the aluminum. We then encounter questions related to sculpture—questions of scale, movement, and space. Each of Matt Paweski’s objects is a way of putting us to the test: what do we see? Are we really here? Matt Paweski’s sculptures possess a strange familiarity. We think we recognize them, and then they elude us. There is a sort of ceaseless movement inherent in each work—both in its presence and its absence. We think we recognize an object, or even a function,
but no. A line, a curve, another line, a void, then another curve, a cutout. Where is the sculpture? Is it the colored surface? Or is it the cutout and the void that make up the sculpture? The answer, barely uttered, is already forgotten. We are already
elsewhere. The beginning and the end at the same time. Welcome to a new world.
In this new world, we also find Johanna Pichlbauer. While our world has been trying for some time to recycle what it has shamefully overproduced without thinking, Johanna Pichlbauer has decided to adopt
a generous attitude without preaching. In the Mounted Ceramics series, she collects secondhand ceramics—pots,
bowls, boxes without lids—anything that is ultimately on the verge of destruction because it has become useless. But rather
than acting violently or transformatively, Johanna Pichlbauer demonstrates great generosity. Selecting ceramics requires
a certain attentiveness toward the object. One must be attentive to shapes, colors,
and dimensions, and ultimately demonstrate a certain gentleness. Johanna Pichlbauer then devises a method to connect the various ceramic objects. By reviving a 16th
and 17th century tradition of assembling Asian ceramics to make them attractive, Johanna Pichlbauer invents an unexpected
formal register. The question posed here is not how to transform what is in excess, but how to accommodate it. By assembling objects of different natures and origins in this way, we can see an attempt to create harmony—almost a family—that, rather than clashing, stands together in this new world. Happiness, ultimately.
Ornamentation that is restrained, overflowing, exaggerated. There you have it—that’s life. A flicker of delight in the eye, weary of smooth, uniform surfaces. We’ve left the hospital; everything is better; we can return to life.
Photos : © Yann Bohac / A1043
